Two new places with mouthwatering pedigrees are doing breakfast and lunch a little differently.

It’s not like it’s a trend or anything, but when a Mexican café on Monroe and a Pig-centric coffee shop opened up on Sprague catering to breakfast and
lunch-hour crowds, we were all over it.

Don’t
get us wrong: it’s not like we don’t like lunchfast in this town
(especially since its similar yet distinct cousin, brunch, is so hard to
come by). It’s just that, around the core, most everything’s been dined
to death. The idea of huevos machaca in the morning and the Hercules
Mega Pig at noon, well, that was just too much to pass up. Check it:

MEXICAN ON MONROE

Fans of the now-closed El Gallo Giro (on Sprague near Freya) will be happy to learn the restaurant’s owners have opened La Esquina Mexican Café on North Monroe in the old Top Notch Café space. Cesar and Patricia Martinez hope a new location near the courthouse will attract more traffic than their previous location in a culinary hinterland.

After closing El Gallo Giro, the Martinez family relaxed, took a break and regrouped, explains Patricia. But when the North Monroe space came on the market, the opportunity was too good to pass up. With a fresh coat of sunny yellow paint and some south-of-the-border artwork, the Martinez family was back in business. (“La esquina” means “the corner,” for you English-speakers.)

The menu features six different all-day breakfast platters, including the chilaquiles con huevos, scrambled eggs and fried tortilla strips cooked with a spicy green salsa (made fresh daily) and served with rice and beans. I tried to stop myself, but the dish was so tasty I cleaned my plate. The breakfast is a bargain at $6 — I was fueled for the whole day. Other breakfast items include chorizo sausage and huevos rancheros, served on a platter or burrito style.

In addition to breakfast, the menu includes several popular dishes from the restaurant’s previous location, including arroz con camarones, fajitas, and the “muy grande” burritos, with your choice of meat: carne asada, chicken, pork adobada or lengue (tongue). Prices range from $7-$12. Smaller appetites can choose from tacos ($1.55 each) and snack-sized sopes, little round tortilla bowls with various toppings ($2.75).

La Esquina also offers tamales by the dozen and enchiladas with a choice of four different sauces, including mole, a house special made from a Martinez family recipe. You’ll also find tortas, traditional grilled sandwiches with beans and meat.

As the cooler weather approaches, La Esquina plans to offer hearty soups like chili and hominy-laden pozole, which is traditionally purported to be the perfect cure for a hangover.

SWINE ON SPRAGUE

The Flying Piggets its name from a mixture of hope and resignation. “We always talked about opening up our own place,” says Jacob Rauth, who runs the café. “And the joke was, ‘We’ll do it when pigs fly.’”

Rauth operates the restaurant with his wife, Erin, and his mother-in-law, Marsha Loiacono. The three previously worked at Great Harvest Bakery in Lincoln Heights, Loiacono as far back as 1991. She says this gig was an ideal segue.

The decision for a pork-ful menu and to settle in the International District was one-third because Sprague didn’t have a sit-down coffee shop, one-third because Spokane didn’t have porcine offerings at price points under $15, and thirdly because it made sense to sell porcine specialties at a place called “The Flying Pig.”

“We like people,” says Loiacono. “And everything’s better with bacon, right?” Bacon or any other form of pork, like the Pig’s delicious homemade biscuits with sausage and gravy, breakfast burrito, or English
Muffin with egg, Tillamook cheddar, sausage or ham (spinach and tomato
for vegetarians) — and for only $3.50 for any one. There are also hearty
slices of quiche ($4.25), dozens of baked goods made on site and
Craven’s coffee/espresso to pair.

“We decided that where we really need to build our business is in the mornings,” says Loiacono.